Day 1: Hunting and Gathering

Day 1 of making the Digital Handmade Project I got straight into hunting and gathering. Collecting a whole lot of visual stimuli that I have been drawn to lately, as well as my own previous work that I want to revisit or develop. When looking at the work I had already made next to the imagery and textures that I collected, I noticed a few key similarities:

• Colour:

At the moment I am super into these 6 colours paired together (pastel pink, bright red, electric blue, orangey orange, earthy green, and a tiny dash or golden-yellow). Most of what I collected was one or all of these colours combined. This told me that colour is going to be really important in whatever I make.

• Still life:

I really like stuff, especially when stuff is placed on display in a pretty way. So, naturally, I love still lives. The visuals of vases, flowers, fruit and other inanimate objects carefully placed within a frame are just so attractive to my eyes.

• Mess:

Sketchy, blurred and layered paint, paper and fabric were things I collected a lot of. This made realise that I enjoy mixing textures and surfaces with a little bit of 'mess'. 

Day 2: Creative Play

The next step was 'Creative Play'. I did some drawing, painting, and embroidery in response to everything I gathered. I made sure to play around using the colours I had identified. Most of these tests referenced texture, mess, and pattern. This step was really important in getting my ideas flowing and helping me pinpoint what I actually like to create.

Day 3: Ideation

The most successful product of my creative play was the painted leaves. So now comes Ideation. In one of my creative play tests, I painted two leaves I had found outside. Keeping within the colours I had selected I painted one electric blue and the other pastel pink. This test triggered an idea that I decided to pursue:

• First, I photographed the painted leaves, to bring them into the digital world. The aim was to make a quick still life that looked as graphic as possible but using natural elements that had been initially manipulated by hand.

• I then filled in the blanks and ‘painted’ with photoshop.

The product was a bright and graphic still life of an orange. With nods to the texture on the leaves and pattern on the tea towel. 

I then printed my orange still life out and looked at it next to my other tests. I decided that this idea was totally worth pursuing.

Day 4: Testing

Next came testing. This was when I asked myself some questions.

• Is this idea actually going to work?
• What components do I need for this idea to work the best it can?

Assets Made:

• Painted branches ( I wanted them slightly messy so it was obvious they were hand-painted)
• Some weird painty-patterned- textured backdrops (might use if they look good).

Day 5: Testing #2

Now was part 2 of the testing process. This is the first test where I digitised my assets to check how my idea would translate into a digital space.

Realisations:

• I concluded that there is not much point in painting the branches' IRL because photoshop does such a good job painting. 
• Backdrops I painted looked weird-flagging that idea.
• I actually liked the idea and was excited to make more!

Day 6: Constructing Assets 

Now was time for the construction of my handmade assets. This meant creating a few still life setups against a plain backdrop. Getting the composition right at this stage was really important. With my mini studio set up, I used a reflector with natural light and my DSLR camera to shoot. Because I knew I was going to be heavily editing the photos in photoshop, it didn't matter too much whether it was the perfect photograph or not. Here are my still lives before editing/painting.

Once my assets were constructed and captured, the idea was to ‘paint’ using photoshop, letting the digital program make most of the selections/decisions, using mostly the magic wand, paintbrush, and paint bucket tools.

And just like that, I'm done! The Digital Handmade Project urged me to try some handmade to digital techniques that are a bit out of my usual photo-based realm.  As well as providing some good ole creative stimulation during this lockdown.